


Exposure

by Paeonia



Category: Agent Carter (TV)
Genre: Canon Disabled Character, F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-08
Updated: 2016-02-08
Packaged: 2018-05-19 00:18:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,318
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5948866
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Paeonia/pseuds/Paeonia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What happened after Daniel Sousa found that canister in the theater.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. May 7, 1945

**Author's Note:**

  * For [scullyssahnequarkbroetchen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/scullyssahnequarkbroetchen/gifts).



> A birthday present for scullyssahnestarkbroetchen, in gratitude for her general awesomeness (and her egging me on to write :) )
> 
> We were discussing this episode a few months ago and I got a few ideas for a fic, which I started but didn't finish because Lonely Town, so I thought for her birthday I'd finish it up and then (as seems to be the usual for me) it got a bit out of control and started making some demands.
> 
> Herzlichen Glückwunsch zum Geburtstag.

 

For a moment, time freezes: Thompson clutching at his collar and looking at her, alarmed and baffled — Daniel limp on the floor — the shattered lamp—

And then the world starts moving again. Two police officers kneel beside Daniel, cuffing his hands. A police detective is coming up to her — _are you all right, ma’am?_ — an officer is holding out a hand to Thompson, and he's pulling himself back to his feet. Peggy goes to meet him.

“We must summon an ambulance,” she says, while at the same time, Thompson says “The police are calling an ambulance.” They look back to Sousa. Near his head is a —

“Wait!” she shouts. “Wait, don’t touch that!” She picks her way through the popcorn and shards of glass, and crouches near the silver canister. “Jack, look at this.”

He crouches next to her, pulls out a handkerchief, and carefully rolls the canister along the floor. There’s a pressure gauge on the top end and a Stark logo on the front.

He looks up at her. “Any idea what it is?”

“None at all.”

“Think it could have set Sousa off?”

She looks at Jack. “And, before him, perhaps the people in the audience as well?”

Thompson shudders and stands up. He calls out to the rest of the room: “You see this canister here on the floor? It’s evidence, and it’s dangerous. So don’t touch it! We’re going to get an SSR team in here to pick it up.”

They go to check on Daniel. Two of the officers have rolled him on his back. Thompson bends over and takes Daniel's gun from his holster. He is still unconscious, and his breath wheezes a little in his throat…. He really should be seen by a doctor. Peggy looks over her shoulder to see if the ambulance has come.

Instead of the ambulance crew, she sees the lead detective making his way down the aisle. “What’s going on?” He sees Sousa on the floor. “Aw, jeez….”

“Yeah,” says Thompson. “There’s an ambulance on the way for him, but I’m also going to need to make a couple of phone calls.” He pulls a notebook out of his jacket pocket and turns to Peggy. “Agent Carter, I want you to escort Agent Sousa back to the infirmary at HQ. I’ll ask the on-call doc to meet him there. You know more about the Stark tech, so you can give report to the lab boys.

“The rest of the lab team can come here to pick up the canister and anything else we turn up. After I finish up with our NYPD pals, I’ll meet you all back there.”

“All right.” She doesn’t like being sent back to headquarters on principle, but Thompson is right: one of them must accompany Daniel, and of the two of them, she's probably the better candidate.

She scouts around the theatre looking for more clues while Thompson telephones the doctor on call, the scientist on call, and the agents on night duty. She finds a pram with a pink blanket — odd— she doesn’t remember hearing anything about a baby . She asks one of the detectives to dust for prints: perhaps they can match it to one of the victims. And just in case, she asks for the results to be sent to the SSR as well.

The ambulance crew arrives with the stretcher. As they lift Daniel onto the gurney, his wallet and keys fall out of his pocket. Peggy scoops them up and follows the gurney up the aisle.

“Hey. _Hey!_ Carter, stop them!”

“Wait!” she calls to the ambulance crew. She turns. Thompson’s face is grim.

“Change of plans. When the doc heard about that coughing and wheezing, he ordered him straight to the hospital. I’d better go, it’ll save time on the paperwork. So I’m going to need you to wrap things up here, make sure everything gets back to the lab, and then… and then get some sleep.”

“All right,” says Peggy. She does not like the plan, but she has to admit it makes sense.

As Jack passes her, she notices something propped in the aisle. “Agent Thompson,” she calls.

Thompson turns. She picks up Daniel’s crutch and hands it to him.

 

Mr. Doobin arrives with Agent Wallace around half an hour later, bringing equipment from the SSR lab. Peggy knows they’ve made excellent time, but she can’t help feeling impatient. As Mr. Doobin carefully fits a case around the canister, she checks in with the detective. The police haven’t found any other evidence; just the… effects… of the victims.

She wraps things up with the NYPD and informs Agent Wallace that in addition to a canister of an unknown gas, they’ll be bringing a baby pram and a little pink blanket back to headquarters with them. He takes it in stride. Back at the office, she finds Daniel’s file and brings it down to the lab. Mr. Doobin has already dusted for fingerprints; there are two patterns that look very recent: one from a woman, one from a man. She asks the lab to send copies of the woman’s prints to the NYPD and to Immigration, and hurries back upstairs.

 

When she gets to the hospital, she finds Thompson sitting outside Sousa’s room.

“How’s Agent Sousa?” she asks. “By the way, you look terrible.”

“What are you talking about, Carter? I’m fresh as a daisy,” he grumbles. “Sousa’s still out, and that’s the way the doc wants it, he wants him to sleep off that gas and keep his brain quiet.”

“So he hasn’t woken up?”

“He woke up a little as they were moving him to bed. It was ugly — he started coughing, and that turned into him trying to throw up — the doc said _that_ was from the cop hitting him on the head. Anyway, that woke him up just enough for him to start fighting, so the doc gave him a shot to take off the nausea and get him back to sleep. Then he dropped a hint that seeing as Sousa tried to choke me to death back at the movie theater, maybe it would be better if I stayed out of the room. Sousa’s _strong_ , you know that? Remind me to stay on his good side.”

Peggy bites her tongue. “There’s nothing else to report from the cinema,” she says. “Mr. Doobin has the canister safe and sound in the lab, and I have the pram — the baby carriage — in the evidence room.” Thompson looks at her quizzically but he’s too tired to argue.

“The lab,” continues Peggy, “was able to confirm that the canister held some sort of gas. We were also able to lift fingerprints. Some of them were a match for Daniel; he definitely handled the canister. And the others? Dottie Underwood. We matched them to her rifle.”

“So that sews it up,” says Thompson.

“Yes,” she says. She notices the clock. Twelve hours ago, Jack was freeing her and Mr. Jarvis from an interrogation room, and Chief Dooley was still alive.

“Jack, everything’s going smoothly back at the office. Why don’t you go home and get some sleep?”

“Well, we can’t just leave him here. You go ahead, I’ve got this nice comfy chair.”

Peggy is always a little startled when Jack shows some hints of human decency, but she does not allow herself to be distracted. “That chair looks neither nice nor comfy. I can’t go back to the Griffith tonight; I’ve missed curfew, among other reasons.”

“ _Curfew_?”

The notion distracts him just enough for her to start chivvying him up and towards the door. “Indeed, it’s a very respectable place. I may need your advocacy if I’m ever to set foot in there again. I’ll be fine here. Go get some rest and I’ll see you in the morning.”

Jack pauses at the door. “Fine. But I’m only letting you do this as a favor to Sousa. I know he’ll appreciate seeing you. If he wakes up before I get back, tell him I’ve got his badge.

“Good work today, Carter.”

“Thank you.”

 

She checks in at the nurses’ desk — nurses are invaluable allies — and returns to Daniel’s room and lets herself in.

He is still unconscious, or sleeping; she can’t tell which. His breath is still raspy in his throat, and every so often he coughs a little. They’ve taken off his tie and jacket and vest and shirt; without all those layers, he looks smaller somehow. For a moment she’s reminded of a little wet bird, but only for a moment; little wet birds don’t need to be pinioned by four stout leather restraints to a metal bed frame. She shudders.

They’ve left his trousers and shoes on, so presumably they’ve left his prosthesis on; can that be comfortable for him? Peggy realizes she has no idea: Daniel’s never so much as breathed a word about it.

She looks around the room. The chair in the room is not meant for long waits. There’s a second bed across the room; she finds a spare sheet, spreads it across the top of the bed, slips off her shoes, and makes herself as comfortable as she can. There’s nothing to do but wait until Daniel wakes up.

 

She wakes with a start. She didn’t intend to fall asleep, but apparently she did, so soundly that she didn’t wake up when some lovely nurse put a blanket over her. She looks over at Daniel. He’s still sleeping, but he’s not wheezing any more.

It’s 0430, but she knows won’t be able to get back to sleep anytime soon; might as well wash up a bit. She washes her face and changes into the clothes Angie was able to smuggle out for her. She brushes her hair and puts on some powder and fresh lipstick. When she’s done, she puts her things back in her bag and walks about the room a little bit. She catches sight of some odds and ends lying on the bedside table. Mildly curious, she goes over to look.

It’s just the bits and bobs from Daniel’s pockets: coins, a pencil…. There’s also something on a chain, like a necklace, but it’s not a dog tag. It’s much smaller: a religious medal.

What she’s doing is rather rude, but she can’t help herself. She brings the medal over to the light of the window to get a closer look. It bears a tiny image of St. Michael the Archangel, raising his sword to smite the devil. Peggy’s heart aches a little as she thinks of her brother.

As she puts Daniel’s medal down, it occurs to her that she’d never known he wears it. Obviously it’s because he wears it under his clothes, but now that she’s thinking of it, there really is quite a bit she doesn’t know about Daniel.

She remembers his wallet and takes it out of the jacket she was wearing last night. Back in the movie theater, the wallet hit the floor open and upside down, and some of the contents fell out. In her haste, she’d simply grabbed it all and shoved it in her own pocket.

She puts the wallet down with Daniel’s other things and brings out the loose items. A laundry ticket, a few notes and business cards… a photograph.

This time she doesn’t even attempt to stop herself. She brings the picture over to the light.

She’s pleased to see it looks like a family picture. Daniel is seated on the right end of a couch. Next to him are two women — probably his sisters, judging from the resemblance; Peggy fancies the one on the left end of the couch is the eldest. A man is perched behind her on the arm of the sofa — husband, perhaps? She’s holding a baby. The woman in the middle has a little girl in her lap, and a young boy has wedged himself between them and Daniel. Daniel has his right arm around the boy’s shoulders.

 _Christmas ’45_ , reads the back of the picture. Peggy turns it back to the front. Everyone in the picture is smiling (except the baby, who looks like she’s lost interest in the camera). Daniel’s smile is relaxed and open, a smile she’s never seen on him before, and he looks so happy she can’t help but smile back a little.

She stares at the picture for a while before she puts it on the counter with his wallet and walks back across the room to look out the window. Christmas ’45… she was just getting to know Daniel then, and she remembers being pleased when he was finally back from his four days off. Having a friend in the office had gone a long way towards making this job bearable, and now… well, they’re working together now at least, and that’s important, and it looks like they’re friends again too; when Daniel came back with Dottie’s rifle it was as if nothing had ever happened between them….

 _Dottie_. Dottie killed Agent Corcoran yesterday, and she could have killed Daniel. Peggy’s mind races ahead to what Dottie and Ivchenko’s next moves could be. Incriminating Howard can’t be their ultimate goal, can it?

Outside the window, the sun is just coming up. What’s going on back at the office? Is there any new information?

From behind her, she hears Daniel start to cough again. She turns — he keeps coughing, but this time his eyes are open, he’s sitting up, and he doesn’t look confused or combative as he tugs at the restraint; just perplexed.

“Carter,” he croaks. “What the hell is going on?”

 

 

“I think you’re pushing it, Agent Sousa, but I suppose you can go,” says the doctor. “But I want you to take it easy today, and have someone around for the next twelve hours, just in case.”

“Just in case what?”

“Just in case your throat starts swelling up again, so he can get you to the hospital in case you need an emergency tracheotomy so you don’t strangle to death. We were worried about that last night, you know.”

Daniel looks annoyed, but he doesn’t argue; he just rolls up his tie, put it in his pocket, and picks up his crutch. Peggy walks with him down to the cab stand. His pace is slower than usual.

“Thanks again,” he says. His voice is still rough. “I’ll see you back at the office, all right?”

“Oh, are we going straight to the office?”

“I need to go home for a bit. You go on, I’ll met you there.” A cab pulls up. “Here you go.”

Peggy peeks around him and waves on the next person in line. “Do you have a flatmate?”

“I’ll be _fine_.”

“Daniel, you are still recovering from the effects of an unknown dose of an unknown gas. The doctor’s right, you shouldn’t be alone yet.”

“No, it’s out of your way, and anyway, I don’t really have a place to…. My apartment isn’t much bigger than your place.”

 _Ah_. Peggy senses that now is not the time to tease him about modesty, or about their already having seen each other in their underwear. “You are not going home alone, Daniel, and that is that. Do you have a friend who could come over? I could call one of the other agents.”

“No, I….”

“Or I could sit out in the hall with the door open a crack —” Daniel’s face makes it clear he does not like that idea at all — “Or I could sit with my face to a wall, reading a book. I’ll respect your privacy, I promise. But you _must_ have someone: if not me, then someone else. There’s no getting around it. Because the doctor’s right, and I’m right, and I have your keys.”

He looks away, but Peggy knows she’s carried her point. “Besides,” she says, “I’m counting on being ravenously hungry in a little while, so the sooner we end this discussion, the sooner we get you home and the sooner we can move on to breakfast.”

 

Daniel’s flat is small, maybe even a little smaller than Colleen’s, and it seems even smaller because he’s left the Murphy bed down. The bed’s neatly made (blue and green checked bedspread) — the whole place is tidy (very Daniel); furniture shabby (certainly rented); little kitchen area — oh dear, no teakettle visible — little kitchen table with one chair, the other chair’s outside the door to the bath; desk, bookshelf, books on the table next to the bed, crucifix on the wall, a couple of other pictures, and that’s as much time as she has to observe, because Daniel is looking uncomfortable.

There are two upholstered chairs. One of them has a folded knitted blanket on the seat; Peggy walks to the other one. “May I sit here?” she asks.

“Uh, sure. Help yourself to a book or something.” He waves toward the telephone table.

“Thank you.” Peggy turns the chair around to face the wall, picks up an issue of _Life_ , and settles in to what turns out to be some of the oddest thirty minutes of surveillance she’s ever undertaken, in which the goal is to _not_ see her target. She tries as hard as she can to ignore the ordinary sounds of Daniel getting ready — drawers opening and closing, clothing being carried back and forth — and to give the impression that she’s engrossed in the magazine. The bathroom door closes; a few minutes later, the shower starts, and soon Daniel starts coughing again — perhaps the steam is knocking something loose. Peggy puts down her magazine as she listens. The coughing soon stops, there are no further alarming sounds, and she’s able to turn her full attention back to Dottie.

The shower stops. A few minutes later, water runs again, and Peggy is able to catch a subtle whiff of shaving soap. She smiles a little: it’s a scent of mornings at home: her father smiling and dabbing a bit of lather on her nose, her heckling her brothers to hurry up in the bath already; it’s a scent of spare moments in the back of a truck in Europe….

And today  it’s the scent of just… Daniel: Daniel being all right, Daniel having escaped, Daniel not being taken away like the others…

She hears the bathroom door opening and closing, and something that sounds like the kitchen chair being moved around, but she doesn’t hear coughing so she doesn’t say anything. Finally, around fifteen minutes later, she hears Daniel walking out into the room. “Okay, Carter, I survived. Satisfied?”

“Very much so,” she says. She stands up and turns the chair around. Daniel’s gait is stiff and slow, but he’s looking much more like himself. “Dressed for the office, I see. Didn’t the doctor say something about taking it easy?”

“It’s an office job. It’s easy.”

“I’m relieved you’re following the doctors’ orders so diligently. I’d still like to stop for a bit of breakfast, though: fill up for all the loafing about we’ll be doing today.”

“Sure. Do you have a place in mind?”

“I don’t, actually.”

“There’s always that diner around the corner from the office. Their home fries are pretty decent.”

She wonders for a moment why he didn’t suggest a place in his neighborhood, but she knows the diner he’s talking about and it’s perfectly adequate, it’s an SSR favorite, and she’s getting anxious to be back at the office and see what’s developed, and it’s silly to haggle over such a small question. So they hail a cab and go to breakfast. On the way she notices Daniel looking out the window. What’s he thinking about? she wonders. Perhaps he’ll tell her over breakfast. Perhaps the diner will be noisy enough that they can discuss the case without being noticed. Perhaps she can figure out a polite way to ask him about the picture in his wallet.

The cab lets them off by a newsstand. The incident at the movie theater is on the front page of the paper, so she picks up a copy and reads the story to Daniel as they walk the rest of the way to the diner.

Her face falls as they walk into the diner: it’s packed. They’re in a hurry, so they have to settle for two counter seats that aren’t next to each other. Peggy’s halfway through her pancakes before a spot opens up next to Daniel and she’s able to grab it; by the time she gets there, Daniel’s already almost done. She wolfs down the rest of her breakfast, they pay up, and it’s back to the office.

Rose and the other operators greet them. They fuss over Daniel a little — “Agent Sousa, are you all right? We were so worried about you….” He laughs it off, but for a second he looks a little abashed, which is rather charming. Peggy doesn’t have time to think about it, though, because by the time the elevator doors open, that charming little expression is gone, and when they close again, Peggy has one more thing to return to him: his gun. He thanks her and holsters it.

They step off the elevator. Daniel’s limp is growing heavier — maybe he should have taken the day — but Peggy completely understands, of course he would want to be here. And he’s needed. And she’s glad he’s here, and that they’re walking into the office together. Thompson’s doing the morning briefing in the back corner by the Chief’s office. Dottie Underwood and Dr. Ivchenko are out there somewhere. It’s time to get back to work.

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> St Michael the Archangel is a patron saint of soldiers, law enforcement, and first responders.


	2. Ten Months Later

 

Angie’s out, so she has the place to herself and she’s a little relieved. She’s in her pajamas and dressing gown, with her hair pinned up for the night, curled up in her favorite spot: a cozy chair in one of the sitting rooms. There’s a fire in the fireplace and a glass of whiskey in her hand.

He hasn’t returned her call. Again.

She doesn’t understand. Is he angry with her? That doesn’t make sense, they’d been working so well together, they were friends, and she’d been allowing herself to think perhaps they could be more than friends, because they were going to go out for drinks, just the two of them, she’d been meaning to drop him a hint for months — things just kept coming up, but she hadn’t forgotten. And then he left for Los Angeles — of course he had to, she would have done the same thing in his position — but now he's gone, and someone else is sitting at his desk, and every day it seems there's something new to miss about him.

What is he doing? He must be terribly busy, but is he enjoying his work? How is it going? What cases are they getting?

Does he like California?

She suddenly thinks of the picture in his wallet, the one where he's smiling. She never got a chance to ask him about it.

She sighs and takes a sip of her whiskey. Thank goodness Angie isn’t around to see her wallowing in it like this.

 

 

 


	3. Fifteen Months Later

 

She suggests a casual place, to keep her hopes under control; she suggests a casual place with a view of the water to hint at her hopes, and she tries to signal her completely non-professional interest by ordering something that isn’t whiskey (though she can’t quite subject herself to a Mai Tai.) But eventually the drinks come, and the waiter leaves, and she’s sitting across the table from Daniel Sousa, and he’s fidgeting with his napkin and glancing at her as if he’s afraid that he makes eye contact he’ll never be able to look away again.

They make a little small talk about the view, and their drinks. She knows she has things to say to him that are big, so big that she isn’t sure she’s even found the words yet. She thinks he may too. Those things are too big for a little dining table and a frivolous drink, but maybe they can… start approaching them.

“So, Daniel, there’s been something I’ve been wanting to ask you about for quite some time.”

“What’s that?”

“I’m almost embarrassed to say. I’d hate for you to think that I was… spying on you.” He chuckles. “But I can’t keep this question back any longer. Back during the Midnight Oil incident — no, be patient! — when they were getting ready to take you to the hospital, your wallet fell out of your pocket. I picked it up so it wouldn’t get lost —“

He does his best to look stern. “So how much do you owe me?”

“When it fell, some of the papers that were in it fell out, so of course I picked those up too, and when I was putting them with your things, I happened to notice… a… photograph… and I might have looked at it, a little… and you were in it and I was just wondering who the other people were.”

“You couldn’t sleuth them out on your own?”

“Of course I could have! And of course I wouldn’t.”

He smiles as he starts taking out his wallet. “I can’t believe you’ve been burning with curiosity this whole time.”

“More like a low simmer, but yes.”

“Why?”

“Because you looked so happy in the picture.” She takes a deep breath and makes herself say it: "And because it’s you."

He holds still for a moment before he pulls out the picture. “This one?”

“Yes, that’s the one.”

“If I tell you about this picture, you get to tell me something. Fair’s fair.”

“That sounds reasonable.” She leans forward as he starts to point out the people in the picture, and works on committing the names to memory. She is already hoping that she will meet them. And if he figures that out... she doesn't think she'll mind.

 

 

 

 


End file.
